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In the past five years, Russia, China, and others have accelerated their development of hypersonic missiles to threaten U.S. forces in the homeland and abroad. The current Ballistic Missile Defense System, largely equipped to contend with legacy ballistic missile threats, must be adapted to this challenge. The same characteristics that make hypersonic missiles attractive may also hold the key to defeating them. This CSIS report argues how a new hypersonic defense architecture should exploit hypersonic weapons’ unique vulnerabilities and employ new capabilities, such as a space sensor layer, to secure critical nodes. These changes are not only necessary to mitigate the hypersonic threat but to defeat an emerging generation of maneuvering missiles and aerial threats.
Local Government in Early America is a concise and thought-provoking exploration of the American desire for political participation, most notably in the 'town hall meeting.' A product of early New England democracy, this form of direct local participation remains one of the most celebrated, yet feared, institutions in our political life. Depending upon one's political perspective on the issue at hand, a lively town hall meeting can be the glorious epitome of grassroots activism or the wretched embodiment of reactionary zeal. For all of the media attention devoted to the conservative revolt against health care reform at town hall meetings across the country, the political right is late to gam...
Russia’s missile campaign against Ukraine has severely underperformed expectations. In the invasion’s early days, Russia underestimated the necessary scale and effort of its missile campaign. Since then, Russia has changed course multiple times, most recently moving to target Ukrainian electrical grid and civilian infrastructure during the winter months. Russia’s haphazard missile campaign reflects both internal strategic failures and Ukraine’s critical forward thinking in the days prior to the invasion. Early Russian failures also gave time for Ukraine to develop its air defense strategy and capabilities which have only grown in effectiveness, thanks in large part to Western aid. This CSIS report provides an in-depth review of these and related “missile war” dynamics.
An informed modern plan for post-2020 American foreign policy that avoids the opposing dangers of retrenchment and overextension Russia and China are both believed to have “grand strategies”—detailed sets of national security goals backed by means, and plans, to pursue them. In the United States, policy makers have tried to articulate similar concepts but have failed to reach a widespread consensus since the Cold War ended. While the United States has been the world’s prominent superpower for over a generation, much American thinking has oscillated between the extremes of isolationist agendas versus interventionist and overly assertive ones. Drawing on historical precedents and weighing issues such as Russia’s resurgence, China’s great rise, North Korea’s nuclear machinations, and Middle East turmoil, Michael O’Hanlon presents a well-researched, ethically sound, and politically viable vision for American national security policy. He also proposes complementing the Pentagon’s set of “4+1” pre-existing threats with a new “4+1”: biological, nuclear, digital, climatic, and internal dangers.
The culmination of four decades of research and service on behalf of Congress, Louis Fisher's latest work is a fitting capstone to a remarkable career as scholar and writer and presents his most articulate, passionate, and persuasive defense yet of Congress as an institution. Our nation's leading authority on the separation of powers, Fisher offers a lucid primer on our nation's government and its executive, legislative, and judicial branches while vigorously advocating a robust reassertion of Congress's rightful role within that system. Drawing on a wide range of legislation, Supreme Court rulings, and presidential decisions, Fisher illuminates the contentious contest among the three major ...
There are growing calls for a decrease in the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. This CSIS report assesses three posture options for U.S. forces in the region to inform the debate over the United States' military presence in the Middle East. The report finds that the United States should keep a notable but tailored presence in the Middle East to contain the further expansion of Chinese and Russian military power and to check the actions of Iran and terrorist organizations that threaten the United States and its allies and partners.
The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program was created in 1991 as a set of support activities assisting the Former Soviet Union states in securing and eliminating strategic nuclear weapons and the materials used to create them. The Program evolved as needs and opportunities changed: Efforts to address biological and chemical threats were added, as was a program aimed at preventing cross-border smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. CTR has traveled through uncharted territory since its inception, and both the United States and its partners have taken bold steps resulting in progress unimagined in initial years. Over the years, much of the debate about CTR on Capitol Hill has concerned...
In Kim Jong-un’s Strategy for Survival, David W. Shin contends that Kim Jong-un's consolidation of power at home and the leveraging of Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, and Washington, and others abroad show that he is not a madman and, like the two earlier Kims, has consistently been underestimated. Shin presents an alternative framework for Kim Jong-un’s behavior through his analysis of Kim's background and his development as the successor to his father, Kim Jong-il; the evolution of the totalitarian system Kim inherited from his grandfather, Kim Il-sung; and the security environment after Kim Jong-il’s death in 2011. This book is recommended for scholars and students of political science, Asian studies, international relations, and history.
The Russo-Ukraine War is a vital learning opportunity for military strategists across the globe. The first and clearest lesson to be gleaned from it is this: the soundness of a military’s strategy and the nimbleness with which it can adapt to unforeseen circumstances are the two most important factors in deciding victory or defeat. The War for Ukraine analyzes the war through these twin lenses of strategy and adaptation, detailing how each army has succeeded or failed to plan for and adapt to this twenty-first century war. Author Mick Ryan examines the foundations of Ukrainian and Russian strategy for their ongoing war, looking back over several decades to reveal how both sides have evolve...
The Obama administration is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in recent American history. In this book, a diverse group of presidential scholars step back from the partisan debate to consider the first two years of the Obama presidency through the lens of the U.S. constitution's theory, structure, and powers. They ask how Barack Obama understands and exercises the President's formal constitutional and informal powers and responsibilities of the president, from foreign policy and public policyto his political leadership of the Democratic party and the nation as a whole.